The Children's Crusade: Oceans of Darkness
by Pallarel Studios
Summary: You know this from Seldon. Well, he gave up on it. He saw it fit, for some unknown reason, to allow me to continue. So now it's my job to finish.
1. Setting the Stage

Hey.

Dorian Gray here. In case you guys didn't know, Seldon gave up on The Children's Crusade, and in his all-knowing benevolence (or, possibly, rampant arrogance and stupidity), he deemed I, Dorian Gray, worthy of continuing the fic, for reasons that elude the both of us to this day.

Anyway, this is really the first chapter of The Children's Crusade, Oceans of Darkness, that Seldon wrote. This was the second-last chapter that he wrote before giving it up; it is included with mine for continuity. These are also available in his FFN profile, as well as the notice saying he was giving it up.

So, seeya around chapter three, then.

Enjoy!

**********

Ah fook it. I got bored. So I'll post this chapter and next week the second chapter of the story...and then I've really, REALLY got to get back to work on it.  
  
No, seriously.  
  
Updates are going to start becoming hazy in the future: college looms across my horizion.  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents:  
  
An Etherworlds Production:  
  
The Children's Crusade: Oceans of Darkness  
  
~~~~  
  
Gendo Ikari watched the medical crews gently worm their way past the amber hot edges of Unit 01's entry plug, carefully lifting their precious cargo over the sharp ends as they went. Below him, the emergency team was coiling and neatly disassembling their arc cutters into several piles.  
  
"The preliminary reports say that he's going to live."  
  
Gendo looked down at the snowy mane of his subordinate, then turned away from the docking bay and strolled smoothly towards the door. Kouzo quickly, if unprofessionally, wheeled his seat around and sped up to follow.  
  
~~~~  
  
"Chapter One: Setting the Stage"  
  
~~~~  
  
"He could have killed us all," Gendo's anger was boiling away the thick, icy exterior of calm he usually had. It was an impressive sight to behold. Kouzo signaled for one of the heavily armed Section 2 agents to follow behind and guide his chair. Gendo had not been happy about having a helping hand along for Kouzo, but since Ikari wasn't about to push his subordinate along. The presence of the guard had a calming effect on Gendo though, it made him forcibly calm himself and return to the icy, cold bastard he was. "What of the Sixth Child?"  
  
Kouzo eyed the floor. It's never-ending rolling sea of blank, scratched surfaces that were always flat, always shining dull in the bright flourescent suns that perpetuated the only light of their existence. "The reports say that when he was extracted he started attacking the rescue team."  
  
"Attacking them?" Gendo let his eye's fall into thin slits as he carefully listed what few contingents and planned uses he had for the Sixth Child, then curled his eyebrows in a brief uncontrolled moment of anger as he realized none of those were feasible now.  
  
Kouzo nodded, even though he knew Gendo would never be looking in his direction. "Yes. The doctors report that Kensuke Aida suffered a mental breakdown. Apparently from what he saw before Shinji regained control."  
  
The trio walked a distance in silence, coming shortly to a side branch that lead down a brief corridor to one of several banks of elevators. There they halted and waited for the express elevator that would send them to Ikari's office level.  
  
"The Fourth?" Gendo asked, his eyes a perfect imitation of Rei as they stared blankly ahead.  
  
Kouzo coughed, sinking wearily back into the thin cushions of his chair. "The medical autopsy should tell us exactly what he died of, but as of now..." The door pinged and slid aside on well-greased tracks. Gendo stepped in and the guard followed quickly with Kouzo. The door slid shut again. "For now, the medical examiner is fairly sure he died of massive internal trauma."  
  
"From the infection?" The words were carefully selected, Gendo didn't trust this guard at all. Kouzo saw through the innuendo and subtly glanced to the empty holster at the agent's side. Gendo had required the man to remove his pistol before even entering his presence. 'A wise precaution? Or is he slipping into paranoia?' Kouzo thought quickly before answering in the same carefully worded manner.  
  
"Unknown, the films suggest either."  
  
The agent shifted, a bare few millimeters--but he gave away his nervousness. Gendo made a quick note of his ID badge and prepared a quickly worded message that he would send to someone he could trust enough to handle the job.  
  
"He is being handled properly?" Gendo phrased next.  
  
"As all of our previous samples were."  
  
Gendo sharply nodded once, then started walking forward. The moment his foot neared the door the elevator pinged and halted. Gendo was out the doors with centimeters to spare on his shoulders. The guard waited a moment in stunned appreciation for his commander's acute sense of timing but started forward at Kouzo's reprehensive cough.  
  
His duty done, the guard quick timed back to the elevator and left that massive room with the tangibly chilled tension behind. He fairly bounced from one foot to the other as the elevator plummeted through the expansive depths of the Headquarters building, anxious to make his report and then jump off duty to go bar hopping through the city. He hadn't had a decent drink since two last night, and he was really feeling the shakes now that it was nearing ten the night after.  
  
The elevator slowed, then stopped. The doors sliding open with greasy efficiency.  
  
The guard never felt his face explode.  
  
Gendo impassively watched from the elevator camera as one of the janitors pocketed his silenced pistol and started to clean up the mess with a near- mechanized efficiency. Japanese were efficient if nothing else. The small screen wavered out of existence and he turned to where Kouzo was slowly guiding himself around one corner of his massive desk.  
  
"About the Sixth...his psychiatric report should be placed into top priority. With the petulance the Third has shown I don't pretend to keep him in his position. The Sixth can pilot Unit 01, so I will use him." Kouzo parked his chair and watched Ikari with speculation written across his brow.  
  
'If we can't use the Sixth, you'll still have Rei and Sohryu to work with though. But you already know that Sohryu won't pilot Unit 01. And you won't be able to use Rei if you have her assigned to your best defensive weapon.' Kouzo sighed, 'It's all a game. Just a game.'  
  
He turned and watched Ikari silently activate the room's main holovid. The text, oft familiar with the grassy green words, floated evenly in the air as Ikari read them. And read them, and read them, and read them. Kouzo watched with tired resignation. He was getting tired of this game.  
  
***  
  
Asuka and Rei were as mis-matched a pair as robins were to silver trout.  
  
Deep red hair to ice blue. Ice blue eyes to blood crimson. Olive tan skin to pale flesh. Flamboyance to silent meditation. Even their poises and where they decided to wait for the third of their group was strikingly different; one choosing to stand and wait with mild irritation and anxiety, the other patiently waiting with a practiced position on the nearby bench. So different, but with the same goals.  
  
Neither of them looked especially well. Asuka having a small wind of medical gauze wrapped around her head; a precautionary measure they told her. 'Precaution for what?' was the thought running through her mind as they did the service. Another bandage patched across a small cut along her cheek. It wasn't deep, and it wouldn't scar but heal rather nicely up. She worried about it nonetheless however.  
  
Rei was in bandages as well, but hers were more superficial than having any real benefit. The soft fabric of her sling was just for her arm to rest and relax enough for the nerves to calm down and re-orient themselves. The arm itself felt fine, apart from the sporadic feeling that it was no longer there; but the doctors told her not to strain it until a few days had passed by, and she trusted their judgement.  
  
"He's really done it now...hasn't he?"  
  
Rei reacted slowly to Asuka's question. Her mind delicately probing all possibilities for answering her query and then quickly narrowing down possibilities. The whole process took little more than a few nanoseconds, occurring so fast that she didn't even realize her acting it out until her mind had reached two possible conclusions and left it up to her decision. She chose and answered.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Asuka looked over briefly, a small glance of irritation at the brief answer. But she could only fault herself. Rei really wasn't the one to enjoy chatting about nothing and the world under the sky. "Did you see when they took him out?"  
  
Rei had seen. She was still conscious enough to have even watched Shinji's angry expression and hear his sorrow scream out across the comm lines. She saw the blank, staring look that Kensuke Aida had adopted--how his lips moved ever so slowly in a constant cycle, repeating one word.  
  
Touji.  
  
"I saw," was her short response.  
  
Asuka finally grew tired of waiting and flopped down into the bench farther up from Rei. "I wonder what they'll do to him now." She warily studied the two suited guards that so casually waited beside the only entrance or exit to the room that held a critically listed Shinji Ikari. Rei silently watched the guards as well, then turned aside to study a sudden motion nearby her foot, sheathed in the thin white material of her plugsuit.  
  
The ladybug slowly crawled along, followed by a small white moth, and the smallest of grasshoppers. A silent chirruping scratched out from it's legs as it slowly hopped further along the steel halls. Soon it reached even with the gently fluttering moth and passed it by, easily sliding underneath as the frail creature struggled to rise in the air. Then it landed near the ladybug, the shock of it's landing and the brushing glance as it rose again into the air knocking the smaller creature askew; the ladybug struggled and thrashed as it rocked on the smooth shell covering its back.  
  
Soon the grasshopper was far ahead of the two following bugs, the moth passing by the smaller red insect as it slowly shifted itself back to its natural position. Then the green grasshopper took a small rest, scritch- scratching his legs together to make the wonderful music he made.  
  
The heavy shoe of the nearest guard quickly silenced that chirruping music. Rei would never forget that look of disgust and revulsion that crossed the guards face as he scraped his shoe across the smooth floors of NERV, vainly attempting to clean off the mess he made.  
  
She would even have dreams about it.  
  
***  
  
The room was, as it always was and would ever be: a dark ocean of nothingness perpetuated by nothingness in itself. Only a thin desk that had seen better days in the light of day and the smallest of straight-backed chairs occupied this place of dark emptiness. And in that small chair at that thin desk in the ocean of darkness, one man sat and contemplated.  
  
'The Sixth Child. That boy has much anger and hatred at the Angels for what Ikari told him. We could use that anger...shape it, control it. Direct it.' A small diode lit up on his thin desk, the light seeming strangely foreign amidst the endless sea of cool midnight. "Yes?" Keel imperiously said.  
  
"The Council is ready."  
  
The diode flashed once and then dimmed, while around the room thick blocks started thrumming to life. Soon all the members of his Council had appeared and were awaiting the first word from his own mouth. "The Sixth Child...an unexpected turn of events. And an unusual tactic for Ikari to suddenly employ."  
  
One of the members spoke up, the numbered insignia of his holographic projection lighting up brighter than the others as he spoke out his thoughts. "It is a dangerous choice for Ikari. One of my men managed to transmit the actual Entry Plug footage from inside Evangelion Unit 03...the Thirteenth Angel. That pilot was most certainly alive at the time Ikari ordered the Sixth to destroy his target."  
  
"And with such ferocity too!" another spoke up, "I've also learned of a secret funeral that Ikari ordered carried out two days before this latest Angel incident. From the reports I've received, and from certain friends we all know, the sister of Unit 03's pilot died and her brother was never made aware. In fact, the only reason he joined at all was because NERV gave him a medical deal to help heal his sister."  
  
Keel smiled at that, 'Just another reason...'  
  
Seele 04 spoke out, "Our own pilot is still undergoing duplication for the dummy plug systems developed by the good doctor. But indeed, I confess that the Fifth seems a pale comparison to what the Sixth showed us he could do."  
  
"Never forget what he is though!" Keel very nearly shouted out, "No matter how peaceful a facade he presents to us; Never forget what he is!" The room was quiet for a moment, then the members continued. "What should we do about the Sixth?" Seele 09 asked with his old man's synthesized voice.  
  
"Our mutual friend suggested to me that the Sixth's psychiatric analysis could be arranged," said the one who had so exclaimed over the Sixth Child's ferocity. "If we could convince Ikari that the child would be of no further help to him, our agents could easily find a way to 'liberate' him for our own uses."  
  
'Excellent.' Keel stroked at his chin, a purely sentimental gesture as he knew the others could not see him do so. "Ikari would be suspicious if his cast-off suddenly went missing."  
  
"Let him," came a brutal response from a thick, masculine voice. "Ikari will speculate what we are doing, and he will ask questions that we will deny. It is all part of the game we play. We ask him, he asks us, each knowing what the answers are. He will do nothing..."  
  
"Because we will have our mutual friend make the Sixth worth nothing to Ikari."  
  
'Perfect. Now we will have another piece to play in the final rounds,' Keel sat forward and rubbed his hands together, another gesture of no importance. "Then it is agreed. We will have our mutual friend handle the child until he is ready for delivery to our own men. We will discuss other matters after the Sixth Child has been safely delivered to our training facilities. Seele Nine, your part is still of the utmost importance. I expect to hear an excellent report of how your project is progressing."  
  
Seele 09 had been silent to this point, but briefly broke that cautious quiet to acknowledge his master. Then they all faded back into the ocean, that sea of darkness that surrounded this chamber of secrets. This holy of unholies.  
  
Keel quickly pushed a diode and spoke quickly.  
  
***  
  
"Yes? Yes. I understand. Goodbye."  
  
"Who was that?" the Old Man asked as he set out the well-prepared but fairly sparse meal that Father Sanders had prepared for both himself and Kaji. Kaji looked up from the misting dish to study the Father's face but turned away before the middling priest could see his studious watching.  
  
"Hmm? Oh, just a man from my church. Wondering if I could come back for a few days to handle a problem. No big deal." The Father bustled about, pulling out plates and silverware and glasses for the three friends as the Old Man gingerly slid into his seat by the head of the table. Soon the Father came back and passed around the accumulated dishes before sitting himself. "Um, alright..." The men took each other's hands and bowed their heads over their empty plates.  
  
"Our Father, who art in Heaven--"


	2. Memories

The Last Chapter that Seldon ever wrote of The Children's Crusade. Let us mourn his passing.

Anyway. Enjoy his last chapter, before moving onto mine.

-Dorian

**********

This will be the last one for a moment of time. I'm working on yet another one-shot story to post out. But this one will be romantic! I swear to God and all high Heaven, it will be romantic! And not a darkfic either! Yes by God! I am not doing a darkfic for once in my life....well, I think it isn't a darkfic.  
  
Maybe.  
  
And wish me luck all: cause in 6 days, yours truly will be moving in at the Hill Hall in fair Athens, GA to begin his illustrious road to a Chemistry Degree at the University of Georgia.  
  
Tremble in fear World! I am almost upon thee!  
  
And one little more side note....TCC HAS REACHED 200+ REVIEWS! *Celebrates* And the time is fast coming upon us for the year-long anniversary of this story. I'll be sure to put in a little side note up here when it is. Ja mata!  
  
Sel.  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents:  
  
An Etherworlds Production  
  
The Children's Crusade: Oceans of Darkness  
  
~~~~"Chapter Two: Memories, Part I"~~~~  
  
I've wondered at the ignorance of my country at the horrors that have been wrought across its lands. Marveled at the sheer unknowledgeable populous that knew nothing about the massive battles, the great armies that had slaughtered one another barely thirty miles away from their porches.  
  
But then, when I see how long their attention lasts on my words of history, when I see how few and sparse their library of books are; I cease to wonder. But later that night, I weep for the six hundred thousand men who died fighting our war. Because there are so few who weep for them anymore.  
  
-Seldon  
  
~~~~  
  
"What do the Scrolls say about the Fourteenth?"  
  
Gendo flicked an eye over to where Kouzo was slowly whittling down a thick twist of hardened salami, the one thing that not even the doctors, with all their "recommended" dietary schedules and endless storehouses of pills for this ache and that sore, could keep from him. The attention soon returned to the halted scrolling of the green text that floated ethereally above the floor. A low, menacing growl burned in his throat, threatening to escape and show the slow and subtle tension that had been quickly building up for the past hour and a half of reading and mystic foretelling.  
  
That's what the whole of the Scrolls were for anyway, for one man to sit down and try to pry free the secrets that they vaguely hinted at. But today was the first day that Gendo really felt the strain and tension of that exercise of mind. Today...  
  
"The Scrolls say that the Fourteenth will come immediately following the Thirteenth's death."  
  
"You don't seem convinced by it, why?"  
  
Gendo waved his hand dissmissively, gesturing broadly at the text. "The Scrolls have said this same line again and again. They said it about the Fourth, and three weeks passed before the Angel showed."  
  
"So you don't think that it will differ from any of the other Angels?" Kouzo popped in a thin slice of salami and chewed thoughtfully.  
  
"No..."  
  
Kouzo stopped chewing and slid the food to his cheek, "That certainly sounded re-assuring to me."  
  
Gendo slightly shook his head and turned his chair to watch the last rays of sunlight fade. Reflected sunlight from the surface, yes--but the effect was still the same. "The wording is slightly different, but then so are the others. But I would prefer a definite date and time that we could set for ourselves. Otherwise, we may be caught blind."  
  
Kouzo quickly swallowed his food. "The problems?"  
  
Gendo nodded, "With the destruction of our Matsushiro facility and the damages incurred by the surrounding countryside we've lost close to a third of our observation posts."  
  
"So...we're blind."  
  
Kouzo carved off another thin wafer of hard salami, the red and slightly spicy meat coming off his hands and fingers with a greasy feel to it. He had a packet of crackers in his pockets, but he would save that for later when he had something to drink. Gendo silently watched the dim light fading away from the domed Geofront, not bothering to answer what Kouzo himself had already said. A dozen minutes passed before he turned around again to the hanging text.  
  
"They released the Third Child from the hospital. Tomorrow I will order him brought here to stand hearing. You will be present."  
  
Kouzo looked at the careful poise Gendo had sculpted his thin, wiry body into. That hunched, leaning look that gave him a most sinister expression when you viewed him from the front. The almost casual way that his hands and fingers clasped together to shield any prying eyes from his face; the eerie reflections of his glasses as those cruel, methodical eyes peered at you. Kouzo did not envy the position that Shinji would soon occupy; did not envy having to submit and bow down before those eyes.  
  
'If indeed he will bow...'  
  
The memory of what Shinji nearly did certainly was fresh enough, and the whole of it raised doubt that the boy would continue to go along like he had. Kouzo could not be sure anymore, not after he saw the boy's shaded eyes in that fashion. Not after hearing Shinji so very calmly tell the whole of NERV that he would destroy them just to kill his father. "Just to kill that abomination," as the boy had put it; all the while staring with those cold, calculating, and soulless eyes.  
  
'He has his mother's eyes, but his father shines through them as well.'  
  
"The Sixth Child is also being released, have Section 2 place a watch over him."  
  
"I thought the hospital report said he needed to stay for at least a month for psych therapy?" Kouzo was wary, instantly wondering if Ikari had ordered the pilot's release, even in such a distant state that the boy was reported to be in. One line of the report stated that the doctor ordered the Section 2 guard outside to come in and point his weapon at the boy's face. The report concluded by stating that Kensuke Aida finished his battery of tests, not even recognizing that a pistol was less than four centimeters from his eye. He was dead to the world. 'And they are releasing him?' Kouzo just couldn't understand.  
  
Gendo hummed an answer, then spoke. "Akagi cleared him. She just delivered the reports and then gave me her reasons. She believes that if we returned him to his father his condition would improve. I found no reason to deny her."  
  
'Because you need him to pilot, and if the doctors know you have another available pilot for Unit 01 they would never allow Kensuke Aida out of the ward. Would they? But what are you going to do about Shinji? Why call him here?' It couldn't be because of his reticence for piloting the Evangelion. Nor would Ikari jeopardize his tentative position, what with one pilot a vegetable and the other locked behind a security ward. 'He knows that Aida might prove more than unuseful if placed back into the Evangelion, but he also knows that to trust his son with Unit 01 again may prove to be his demise. He'd never risk his plan. Never...so, what is his game?'  
  
As Kouzo watched, his old and slowing mind struggling to find all the nebulous twists and turns of Gendo's seemingly self-depreciating plan, the man himself was reading over the passage that told him of the next Angel. He read it and frowned, then read it again, and again, and again, and again until--he smiled.  
  
***  
  
As the door closed behind him, Shinji finally realized that he could not do it anymore. He just could not do it. The door, re-enforced with tempered steel that brought it's full weight up to nearly a quarter of a ton and made movable only by the specially designed hydraulic hinges, crashed shut with a dull, rumbling boom. Leaving the room in an ocean of darkness.  
  
Shinji snuffed deeply the air, holding it in his tight chest for as long as he could bear it, then released it with a whooshing cough that ended in a throat burning hack. He groped along the stainless steel walls until his hands found the first of two steel-link chains that supported the thin, hard metal sheet that was to serve as a cot in this prison of metal walls. They jingled a bit as his hands trembled violently with a short, spastic jerk.  
  
'The drug is wearing off.'  
  
His legs were jumping together as he wearily slumped onto the cool sheet of unupholstered metal. NERV did not feel that their prisoners should have any comfort. But it was okay, after all: Shinji was used to it. He had even smirked a bit before the man in a neatly pressed black suit shoved him into the yawning cavern of shadow, feeling almost like he was returning home as his feet stamped clumsily in a near-futile attempt to regain their setting and assert balance. Even that feeling was something familiar, a fleeting remembrance of a time that wasn't but a few months gone.  
  
His cell even smelled the same.  
  
'That Creature certainly has a sense of humor, dry and diseased as it is.' Shinji leaned back against the slick wall, with its dimly illuminescent NERV logo hanging like a headman's ax over his head. The crescent of words that shaped along the bottom, 'God's in His Heaven, all's right in the World,' certainly lent credence to that depressing imagery.  
  
'What will the Creature do to me now? After I have refused his commands? What will he do?' the darkness gave him no answers, only bleak memories. Memories of that time not so long ago, not even a half year past, memories when he did not know the things that he did now. Remembrances of a time when he knew nothing about NERV, the Angels, the Evangelion. A time when his father, that Creature, was but a simple loathing that lurked in the recesses of his mind; when he never knew a person as sloppy and energetic as Misato Katsuragi, a fired and hot-tempered a person that had aroused in him a feeling that he still wasn't quite sure about as Asuka Langley Sohryu, a quite and morose-inspiring person that seemed as frail as dew and harder than adamantium as Rei Ayanami.  
  
Life was so much simpler then. So much easier, easier for him to ignore. Back then he could lose himself in the massive complexities of the past history, of a time that by nature was simpler but no less complex than the times of his own life. How he envied those of the past, how much he longed to do nothing more than rush off towards the untamed wilds of the mountains and live out such a life as he had read.  
  
That letter from his father, that bloodthirsty Creature that had demanded the blood of his friend to be sacrificed to him with his own hands; that letter had shattered all of that--that innocence. And now what he was left with, was the terrible burden that he bore now.  
  
He was not living in the Crusades of the past century. He was living the Crusade of this century.  
  
He was living his own Children's Crusade.  
  
The trembling started along his thighs now, gently covering the much softer trembles of his body as he shook with choked-off sobs. His hands, cuffed thrice over, quickly came up to ease the fall of his head as it dropped with the unbearable weight of grief.  
  
'He killed him...Touji is dead...Touji is dead...'  
  
And so, these walls became a testament once again to the character and person that was Shinji Ikari. They listened to him cry in the darkness, they stolidly waited as he shouted out at the cruel injustices that were the too-oft realities of life, patiently watched as he curled up on his thin cot to drift off into a troubled and shaking sleep bourne out of exhaustion rather than desire. They listened, and they remembered-- remembered that time not to long ago in the feeling of age, when Shinji Ikari had found himself within their austere grasp once before.  
  
***  
  
The day had been hot. Very hot.  
  
And from the very beginning, Shinji knew that something was--not wrong, but rather unusual. Like everyone in the city, or maybe the Universe, had all been invited to a party and he had been left out. Uninformed. After wandering aimlessly for an hour, Shinji reached the place that this Ms. Katsuragi had instructed him to find. He found it more out of blind luck than actual knowledgeable guesses really, or maybe--fate had placed him there. Put him right there so that he could see the beginning of his Crusade. To let him see what horrors would spawn later sorrow.  
  
The picture was suggestive, and Shinji would be a liar to say that he hadn't felt some lusty stirrings when confronted by the curvaceous lines of the long-haired beauty that had asked him to be at this corner at that time, in this place of hell that he would later call his home.  
  
Somebody, somewhere was mocking him at that thought surely. Laughing at the notion of calling Tokyo-3, that place that attracted so much suffering, death, and pain a home. But fate is not a kind teller of futures, what it gave you got; and be damned if you lived for it.  
  
But that he would realize later, and for now his thoughts were only on the impatience and gradually building sense of loneliness that came from the absent streets with their churriping cicadas. He pulled the picture out and mulled over the words that rivaled the picture with its suggestiveness. That stirring was still there as he looked past the words towards the buxom woman leaning over on a sun-drenched, sandy beach. That stirring was easily controlled and tamped down though. He had felt such urges before, but never acted on them. In time, they were so weak that he almost never felt it anymore. His interests were placed elsewhere, on what he deemed more useful things such as literature and music.  
  
After all, none of the others had shown interests in him. None even knew he existed, more than likely.  
  
It was better that way.  
  
Then he went to the phone by the curb, dialing the number written near the edge. The call cost him only a small amount of his meager cash, but it was still an extravagant expense if he were to stay for a few days. He had only enough to get perhaps a dozen cheap meals; not enough for even the dirtiest, most run-down hovel of a hotel room.  
  
The phone rang for what seemed a listless moment of eternity. That flat toning buzz of the other receiver sounding just as listless and weary as his own soul. Finally, Shinji grew tired of it all and just hung the phone up.  
  
"Useless, wasting money," Shinji glanced around, taking in the stark landscape of precise, cubed-off buildings that rose ponderously into the air. Feeling the pure emptiness of it all. "Maybe I should find a shelter..." Shinji had seen the warnings, had heard the declarations from a distance; but what it all meant was beyond him. At first he felt like trying to find a shelter, as the warnings had advised, but soon the impracticality of that weighed the thought down. He couldn't reach what he didn't know where to find; and no helpful portents directed him towards one of these advocated shelters.  
  
So looking around, judging the whole useless situation before him, Shinji was introduced to his enemy. A sudden ground rumbling shockwave rocketed through the city, the impact popping his ears and making him gasp out in pain as wires whipped and whispered through the thick, hot air and the aluminum gratings of the store behind rattled and shook like madmen were beating on the opposing side.  
  
Quickly he recovered, easing open his eyes to stare in horrified wonder at the advancing giant.  
  
That innocence turned to dread as that giant, the Third Angel, reached up ever so easily with his arm to destroy one of the aircraft that encircled it with their feeble weapons of man. Rockets tore down the street beside him, scorching him painfully with the hot, hard afterwash from their jets. Only to explode uselessly against the unseen barrier, the AT Field.  
  
Then came the startling screeches of rubber on pavement, and the much welcomed blue Renault Alpine with the motherly Misato Katsuragi arrived. She seemed like a goddess, coming to take him from this uncertain madness as she opened the door to speak a cheery, "Get in!" followed immediately by a: "Am I real late?" Shinji didn't really care, this city was insane as he saw it. Silent and still one moment, then exploding with rockets, jets, and strange monstrous giants. To him, this Misato Katsuragi seemed to be the light of Heaven in the depths of the deepest, darkest pit of Hell.  
  
How only if he had known, had he known what Misato would take him to; what his life, his existence would eventually be corrupted into--he would have rather stayed in that hell and gladly die under the foot of that giant.  
  
But Fate was not in the habit of telling truths. And nor would it tell the secrets that it had held so closely guarded for fourteen years today either.


	3. Respite

W00T! You got to my chapter!

Man, Seldon really left me at a hard place to keep writing. This one is basically setting the scene for the next few chapters, so no real exciting things happening here.

Figures.

Aw well. Enjoy!

-Dorian

**********

The Children's Crusade: Oceans of Darkness

Chapter Three: Reprieve

**********

No matter which war in history, no matter the victor or the loser, the greatest victims are always the children. The Children's Crusade, The Holocaust, all wars. Even now, in war-torn countries around the world, children walk the streets alone. Searching for a long-dead parent, simply trying to find enough food to eat, or going to the pile of rubble they now call their home.

-Dorian

**********

Darkness. Sweet, blissful darkness.

He could stay like this forever...

It was not his decision to make.

"Get up!" the Section 2 agent growled, kicking Shinji in the ribs. When there was no response other than Shinji rolling over, he repeated the action. "I said, _GET UP_!"

Shinji, weary from the memories that tormented his sleep, finally started to sit up. The Section 2 agent roughly grabbed him under the arms, and forcefully pulled him up.

"Yeah, yeah, just wait..." He headed towards the door. It slid open on his approach, revealing two more agents.

The one furthest from the door looked down at a clipboard. "You have a meeting with the Commander at Oh-Seven Hundred hours, in regard to your actions after the defeat of the most recent angel. You have fifteen minutes to make yourself presentable. The agent gave Shinji a rough push forward.

Shinji, still half-asleep, heard only half. "Whatever..."

**********

_You manipulative bastard... _Kouzo thought, as he watched the Third Child being dragged into the room. _You wake them up at an ungodly hour, and you give them no warning whatsoever, then you put them in a meeting as important as this._

Agents dragged Shinji to the cheap metal chair in the middle of the room, and bound him to it with chains around the arms and ankles. He had obviously not used the time given to make himself more presentable. His hair was wild and untamed, his clothes were dirty and wrinkled, and his body was red from sleeping on the cold metal floor.

His expression was downcast and broken.

_He treats his own son like a dog..._

"Pilot Ikari." Gendo remained as ever, impassive. "You have been charged with Treason against Special Organization NERV; including, but not limited to, destruction of NERV infrastructure, misuse of Evangelion Unit One, and the planned destruction of the Geofront and the assassination of its Commander." He paused. 

"What have you to say in your defence?"

Shinji remained silent.

"As consequence to-"

"I don't want to pilot." Shinji broke through.

Gendo paused. "You no longer wish to be the pilot of Evangelion Unit One?"

Pause. 

"I don't want to pilot. I don't want to be part of NERV anymore."

"You have decided?" Gendo remained unfazed.

Pause.

"Yes."

"Your decision is final."

"I know."

"Very well." Gendo took some forms from his desk. "Unshackle the prisoner."

Section 2 agents undid the chains around his limbs. He shakily stood up, the effort of standing seeming to be too much for him. One of the agents pushed him closer to the desk.

The push was too great for Shinji's weakened state. He fell to the floor, making no attempt to catch himself.

He again pulled himself up.

Gendo hadn't moved. "Sign here,' he said, holding out a pen."

Shinji, hands shaking unbearably, took the pen and signed his name at the bottom of the forms. He ignored the blood   
dripping from his nose.

Gendo took back the pen and paper, signing it calmly. "Identification card."

When Shinji didn't move, the Section 2 agent forcibly ripped the wallet out of his pocket, again pushing Shinji to the floor with his brutal movements.

The Commander accepted the wallet, removed the card, and carelessly threw the wallet back to his son. Shinji, prying himself up from the floor for the third time that morning, barely caught it.

Face blank, Gendo tore the card in half.

"Shinji Ikari, you are no longer a member of the Special Organization NERV. You will gather your belongings and vacate this complex immediately. Revealing any confidential information you have learnt during your time in NERV's employ is punishable by death. Premises for living will be arranged, until such time as we are able to have you disposed." With a barely-noticeable wave of his hand, Section 2 agents grabbed Shinji and dragged him out of the room.

Gendo spun his chair to face Fuyutsuki, purposely turning his back on his son.

"Disposed...he speaks of his own son as if he is but a tool, to be discarded with when broken."

"You knew he was going to do something like that, didn't you?" he said out loud.

Gendo smiled. "Of course. At least, this way, he can blame only himself for any hardships that result from his decision."

Fuyutsuki's expression didn't change, but his thoughts grew colder. _You manipulative bastard..._

**********

Shinji slowly walked out of the NERV complex, focusing on the ground. Misato jumped in front of him.

"Come on Shinji, let's go home." She moved to lead him to the car.

He snached his hand back. "This isn't my home any more."

"Uh...?" pined Misato, before Asuka called out from her place in the car.

"Come on, it's hot in here! Shinji, you can whine later."

"I told you, this isn't my home anymore."

"Uh...?" Asuka echoed. Shinji shuffled the green bag on his back to a more comfortable position, then began walking in another direction.

"Shinji...where are you going?"

He didn't stop. "I need to go someplace."

**********

Father Sanders calmly walked through the Eva Cages, barely glancing to the sides.

He knew exactly where he was going.

If anyone stopped to ask why he was there, as he was certain someone would, he was there to perform a wedding, which was indeed true. He had gotten 'lost', and had walked around until he found a helpful soul that could direct him back to where he should be.

Just as anticipated, a technician in orange stopped him on his approach to the Entry Plug. "I'm sorry Sir, this is a restricted area. I'm going to have to ask you to leave immediately-"

"Forgive this old man, my son," Father Sanders apologised. "I was here to perform a wedding, but the directions the security guard at the entrance gave me must have been mistaken. Would YOU know where it is to be held...?"

The technician visibly relaxed, and lowered his handgun. "So THAT'S what they were doing on level Seventeen..." he laughed. "It was absolute mayhem before, people in suits running to and fro. Why anyone would want to be married HERE, of all places..." He shook his head. "Sorry, rambling. You just keep going along this path and eventually you'll hit a series of elevators on your left. You need to go to level Seventeen. Someone up there will know where to take you from there."

Sanders smiled. "My thanks, my son."

"No problem." The technician continued on his way.

Still smiling, Sanders waited until the man had passed, before withdrawing a handgun from his own pocket and shooting the technician in the back.

"Bloody fool..."

Continuing on his way, Sanders finally stopped at the red-and-white entry plug, only recently used, for the first time in ten years.

The technician had left it open.

Smiling, the Priest went in.

**********

Battle.

_'They killed Touji, they killed my best friend, theykilledhimtheyshallpaytheyshallsuffertheyshalldie THEYSHALLPAYFORTAKINGHISLIFETHEYSHALLPAYTHEYSHALLPAYINBLOODANDAGONYANDPAIN!'_

Laughter.

_"We saw you lo-oking!"_

_"At Rei's mammaries... her silky thighs...her calves...her-"_

_"NAUGHTY BITS!"_

Blood.

_Blood red was the colour of the sun and sky. Blood red was the colour of the waters as they lay in their pools. Blood red was the colour of Unit 01's eye, as Kensuke unleashed his rage._

_"YOU KILLED MY FRIEND!"_

_The Eva reared back its hand, fingers curling into a fist. Aimed directly at the two staring eyes of silvery-white. The fist came down, and the head liquefied. Blood, the same red as the sun and the sky and the waters, flew across the roadway that cut through the mountain and lathered itself across both fields, tree, and man's creation alike._

Laughter.

_"You can handle keeping the Earth safe, and the two of us will take care of Misato!"_

Blood.

_The fist reared up again, blood trailing in thick streams as it pulled up. Then it came down upon the breast of the beast. Another fountain of blood and ichor erupted across the landscape. Then the other hand raised up and ripped free one remaining section of armour plating. The plate went sailing into a nearby housing complex. Shattering both glass, concrete, and steel like it were a cherry bomb let off inside a sand castle. Then up went the fist again, and down it traversed._

_Blood coated the streets. Blood flew through the trees. Blood mirrored the sky. Blood ran in the rivers. Again, and again, and again._

Blood.

So much blood.

He was swimming.

And drowning.

In blood.

_"I'm drowning I'm drowning in blood and I can't get out and I'm suffocating someone help me someone get me out of here someone anyone please do something you gotta help me YOU GOTTA HELP ME!!!!!"_

Kensuke's eyes flashed open, wide awake. He slowly disentangled himself from his twisted sheets and sat up. His bed, not to mention his body, was drenched with sweat.

He rubbed his eyes and lay back down.

"What the hell is happening to me?"

So it goes.

**********

"Just two more cables...yes...done. That should finish it."

The Priest calmly jumped out of the second entry plug, idly wiping his hands with an old rag. The slight 'modifications' he had made to the entry plug would keep the old men at SEELE happy.

He looked at his watch. "Good. Ten minutes until I'm expected for the wedding."

Whistling, he went on.

**********

Shinji scrambled over fallen electricity towers, bits of concrete and other refuse from the attack until he came to the building.

The museum's lights were off, the doorway glass smashed, but still locked.

Shinji bent his arm around, unlocked the door and went in. He only wanted to see one thing.

He found 'The Children's Crusade' and sat down.

So much war, so many tears, so much bloodshed. Is it really worth it? Weren't the angels meant to be the messengers of   
God? Why should they attack God's messengers?

His eyes bored into the eyes of one of the children in the painting. The child, probably no older than nine or ten, simply stood in his ragged, grey clothes, waiting. His eyes were not filled with anger, or sadness, or fear over his executioners. They were filled with, simple...

...acceptance.

Shinji's eyes moved to the cold eyes of the warrior bearing the crooked cross on his arm. His eyes were cold, themselves mercilessly condemning the prisoners to their fate.

He sat there, he did not know how long, simply staring and watching the painting. 

Finally, he stood. He would no longer be part of the Crusade.

At that moment, the alarms rang. An angel had been spotted.

So it goes.

Even without him, the Crusade raged on.


End file.
